Banner Graphic, Volume 16, Number 120, Greencastle, Putnam County, 4 January 1986 — Page 3

Nearly every square inch of space provides storage or room to work in the quaint 8 x 16-foot woodworking shop of Emil Cooper at Cloverdale. Cooper, who says he loves to build and create while he relaxes in the shop, uses a variety of wood to make craft items. After doing the woodworking, Cooper turns over the craft product to Joyce Leer, 121 W. Berry St., Greencastle, who often provides the finishing touches and paint. Cooper also runs an auto shop in Cloverdale. (Banner-Grap-hic photo by Bob Frazier).

Capitol move

3,000-space parking garage to be first addition in 20 years

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The first new structure to be added to the Indiana Statehouse complex in two decades will be a 3,000-space parking garage expected to be under construction in late 1986 or in 1987, two top state officials say. The garage would be a block south and two blocks west of the Statehouse, officials said. Construction could also start in 1987 on a second state office building, just south of the present building, the officials said. Lt. Gov. John M. Mutz and Kendall W. Cochran, an aide to Gov. Robert D. Orr, said the parking garage is the first priority in the state’s plan to modernize and expand the capitol complex to consolidate all state offices. Mutz and Cochran said 1986 will be a year in which the legal and financial groundwork is laid for construction of the buildings. Cochran said it is possible the garage could be started this year. Both officials indicated Thursday that the office building

Hilma Witt's total: 140 years

VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) - Hilma Marie Witte, twice sentenced for plotting the murders of two family members, has been transferred to state prison officials to begin serving a total of 140 years, authorities say. Mrs. Witte, 38, of Trail Creek, was sentenced Friday in Porter Superior Court to 50 years in prison for the 1981 murder of her husband, Paul J. Witte, 45. Judge Bruce Douglas also imposed a concurrent 50-year term for attempted murder in an earlier effort to poison Witte. Douglas, however, ordered the terms served consecutively with a 90-year term imposed in LaPorte County for murder and conspiracy in the 1984 crossbow killing of her stepmother-in-law, Elaine Witte. His order leaves Mrs. Witte to serve combined terms totaling 140 years. Under

Coleman wins delay, but loses chance to talk CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) Convicted murderer Alton Coleman, arrested with companion Debra Denise Brown after a six-state crime spree in 1984, has won a trial delay but was denied a chance to speak in court. Lake Superior Court Judge Richard Maroc granted a lengthy delay Friday in Coleman’s trial on charges in the slaying of a 7-year-old Gary girl. He agreed to consider Coleman’s request for increased access to the Lake County Jail’s telephone. But Maroc cut Coleman short when the defendant asked to speak to the judge in open court. “We’ve got to take up other matters,” Maroc told him. “If there is anything that needs to be said, I will take it up with your attorney.” Maroc postponed the scheduled Jan. 13 trial until March 31 after newly appointed defense attorney Cornell Collins asked more time to prepare. Jail inmates are allowed to use the telephone one hour a day, but Collins said Coleman wants more time to discuss his case with attorneys. Maroc set a Jan. 30 hearing date to deal with pre-trial motions. Coleman is charged with murder, felony murder and confinement in the June 1984 slaying of Tamika Turks, 7, of Gary. He faces the death penalty if convicted. Coleman was charged with child molesting, attempted murder and confinement in an assault on the victim’s 12-year-old aunt.

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would come after the garage or simultaneously, but not before it. The plan for the complex, drawn by Archonics Division of HNTB, an Indianapolis architectural firm, was releasednin December 1984 by the State Office Building Commission. Orr is chairman of the commission. Mutz is vice chairman. Cochran is Orr’s executive assistant. Meanwhile, three state representatives are discussing ways to trim the Office Building Commission’s power. Rep. B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said he would propose a bill to cut the commission’s ability to build a state museum in White River State Park in downtown Indianapolis. Bauer, ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said Reps. Patrick J. Kiely, R-Anderson, who chairs the Ways and Means panel, and Ray Richardson, R-Greenfield, would join in sponsoring the bill.

Indiana law, she must serve at least 70 years, including the time she already has spent in custody. Mrs. Witte listened impassively as Douglas imposed the sentence. Her attorney, Scott L. King of Gary, said the conviction will be appealed and asked Douglas to appoint pauper counsel to handle the appeal. Prosecutor Daniel R. Berning said sheriff’s deputies transported Mrs. Witte to the custody of the Indiana Department of Correction to begin serving her sentences. Last year, Mrs. Witte was sentenced by a federal judge in California to serve 10 years for illegally cashing the dead woman’s Social Security checks. Indiana authorities were uncertain whether Mrs. Witte would be required to serve the

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Bauer said he is not adamantly opposed to the museum, but he wants to make sure the Legislature does not delegate too much power to a commission. Bauer said his bill would limit the commission to constructing parking, one office building and facilities for the state courts as well as renovating the Statehouse. The bill would eliminate the commission’s power, approved by the Legislature in 1985, to bujd “additional facilities for the executive c apartment of state government.” $ Cochran said that Orr would not proceed with a museum without checking first with the Legislature. In the capitol complex plan, the new parking garage would be on the block bounded by Washington, Maryland, Missouri and West streets. If not started in late 196, it would be begun in early 1987, Mutz and Cochran said. Its construction cost has been estimated

federal term, but Douglas ordered the Porter County term be served concurrently with all prison terms imposed earlier. Two other family members have been charged in the death of Paul Witte, Berning said. Mrs. Witte’s older son, Eric A. Witte, 19, has agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter for actually firing the fatal shot. He faces a possible 20-year prison term. Mrs. Witte’s mother, Margaret O’Donnell, 59, is scheduled for trial Feb. 18 for attempted murder for her role in the poisoning attempt. Witte was shot in September 1981 as he lay sleeping in the family’s Beverly Shores home. Beeming said Mrs. Witte instructed* her son to shoot his father and later collected $25,000 in insurance benefits.

at $15.4 million. The state also must buy the land for the garage. Officials see the garage as important because it would serve White River State Park, the Convention Center and the Hoosier Dome in addition to state employees and visitors. Additionally, before construction can start elsewhere in the state complex, parking is needed to replace spaces lost to new buildings, officials said. The second state office building was estimated in the Archonics study to cost between S3O million and $42 million. The capitol complex plan also calls for two more parking facilities, a courts building north of the Statehouse and the possibility of a third state office building. The plan is designed to meet state needs through 1995. Legislative sponsors of the measure said the new buildings would relieve the need for the state to rent office space in commercial buildings in downtown Indianapolis.

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state

$1.9 billion Jordan arms sale in trouble now. Sen. Lugar says

WASHINGTON (AP) - Faltering momentum in the Middle East peace process may cost Jordan a promised $1.9 billion sale of advanced U.S. arms, according to Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Congress must decide by March l whether to let the sale go forward but Lugar, R-Ind., indicated Friday that prospects for approval are doubtful. “The momentum of the peace process has declined,” Lugar said at a news conference. “The Jordan arms sale was part of that process. If momentum is seeping out of the peace process, it’s probably seeping out of the arms sale also ... It’s bound to have an effect.” Under a compromise engineered by Lugar last year, Congress extended until March 1 the deadline on deciding whether to sell Jordan $1.9 billion in sophisticated aircraft, air defense missiles and other arms. The delay was intended to give Jordan’s King Hussein time to demonstrate he can make progress in helping to bring peace to the region. But little progress has materialized since the compromise was reached last October, Lugar said. Lugar suggested that a likely administration proposal to sell arms to the Contras, the anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua, is in trouble on Capitol Hill unless a bipartisan consensus can be forged. And he said one way to do that would be to bring Contra leaders to Capitol Hill for a series of public and private meetings on their operations and goals. Because of the intense controversy

January 4,1986, The Putnam County Banner Graphic

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SEN. RICHARD LUGAR Foreign Relations chairman

surrounding the dispatch of any assistance to the administration-backed Contras, Lugar said it was “semi-miraculous” when both Houses approved last year a $27 million package of non-lethal, “humanitarian” aid to the rebels. That aid runs out on March 31. Although no announcements have been made, Lugar said it is “my own guess” that the administration will seek military aid for the Contras sometime before March 31 “Before we have another round of this, I’m trying to think how I’m going to get 51 votes in the Senate,” Lugar said. He said in order to win those 51 votes, “senators ought to be able to see exactly who we are banking on.”

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